Over the next few weeks, I unofficially became Olympus' messenger girl again, usually being used to solidify relations with whichever gods hadn't turned their backs on the gods yet. I hated playing ambassador but did it anyway after Zeus threatened to keep me on Olympus full time as one of the guardians.

"You already did enough damage revealing your chronokinesis to the campers," he had said, his fingers tapping the armrests of his throne like that was supposed to unnerve me or something. Clearly, he'd forgotten I'd been around his arrogant and pompous attitude for most of my adolescence, meaning I was no longer afraid of the Lord of the Skies.

"Not true," I'd countered, tapping my foot impatiently as I waited to leave. I'd made plans with Pete, Joe, and Leah earlier to keep up appearances, and this meeting was making me late. "No one saw me use my powers."

"Then explain how I know about this!"

I rolled my eyes. "You had Apollo put time-sensitive sensors in my body, remember? You said it was for precautionary purposes after the last time I manipulated time."

"Yes, well, you should've let that boy die."

"That was my son she saved," Hephaestus grumbled, shooting his father a scathing glare. "And it wasn't his fate to die from a car crash that night."

"And how would you know that?" Zeus accused, squinting his eyes at the blacksmith. "You haven't been spending time with the Fates, have you?"

"Like anyone actually wants to spend time with those creepy hags," Apollo said, shuddering at the mere thought of the Fates.

"Says the god of prophecy," Artemis scoffed.

"Hey, that was cold, sis."

"Don't call me that!"

"Anyways," I said, interrupting the gods before this could turn out into a typical council fight, "who do you need me to check on? I have other things to do, you know."

Hermes threw a small notebook at me. I caught it and read the cover, where someone had written the words "List of Potential Allies/Enemies" in fancy script. I began flipping through the pages, fighting back an annoyed groan when I saw the list of people that I still had to talk to.

"Is that all?" I asked, already thinking of how and when I was going to visit two-hundred some minor gods and goddesses that were scattered all over the world.

"Yes, you may go," Athena said, never looking up from the book she was reading, completely blocking out the fights that had broken out around her.

And that was how I spent my next few weeks, reaching every corner of the globe. With how often I was away from Camp-Half Blood, people were starting to get concerned about me, namely Chiron, Luke, Percy, Annabeth, and Will. Grover would've been freaking about my coming and going, too, but he was so busy doing Lord of the Wild stuff that I doubted he was paying me any attention.

Take the Fourth of July, for example.

I'd recently come back from a mission in Brazil after talking with tons of river gods – you'd be surprised how many rivers are in South America – and all I wanted to do was get some much needed sleep. Because alongside river gods came river monsters, nasty little snakes that didn't have eyes, conducted electricity, and could spew venom up to ten feet away. Needless to say, I hadn't been aware of these slimy snakes, and as a result, my left thigh was heavily bandaged after suffering some burns from the venom.

Of course, that wasn't how it worked out.

I came back to camp on Star, meaning that instead of appearing in cabin three like I usually did, I had to walk from the pegasi stables through the camp to reach my bunk. On my way back, both Will and Luke stopped me with large bear hugs, sending a flare of pain racing through my leg when Will accidently pushed against the bandages there.

Nectar, ambrosia, and water could only do so much against the venom, and according to Apollo, the pain wouldn't disappear for another four or five days.

However, the two boys were completely oblivious of my injury, forcing to sit at one of the many picnic tables in the commons area. Luke sat opposite me while Will sat to my immediate right, very content with resting his head on my shoulder.

"Welcome back," Luke deadpanned, his lips pressed in a firm line as his eyes scanned me up and down. "How long were you gone this time? Five, six days? A week?"

"Four days," I replied, subconsciously rubbing at the bandages under my jeans as I felt Will already starting to medically examine me.

"Where'd you go?"

"Brazil."

"Why?"

I smiled wryly. "You know I can't answer that, Luke."

"Come on, Andy," Will drawled, poking my arm repeatedly. "We won't say anything!"

"Already swore on the River Styx not to say."

"Dammit," Luke muttered before dropping his seriousness, a genuine smile coming to his face. "Well, it was worth a shot. Glad to see that you're still in one piece."

"Ditto that," I replied, forcing myself to move my hands onto the table before Will could notice the injury on my leg.

"So now that that's over and done with," Will began, "do you have a date for the Fourth of July?"

I groaned and put my head in my hands. I swear, these two were just as, if not more, annoying than Pete and Joe in terms of getting involved in my love life. Why was everyone so desperate to see me dating someone? I don't need or want a boyfriend at the moment, and it's not like I'd have time to pay him any attention with my tightly packed schedule. Hades, I barely had time to pay attention to myself, accidentally forgoing food and sleep multiple times because I was so focused on my mission.

And to make matters worse, the firework show on the Fourth of July was basically the equivalence of a school's prom or homecoming in terms of how important having a date was. Plus, campers would go out of their way to ask their significant other or crush to the fireworks.

Last year Travis Stoll asked Katie Gardener by setting the Demeter cabin on fire, emblazing a large four with a question mark onto the grass roof. This year, Beckendorf asked Silena after nearly dying from the Myrmekes, and Clarisse had asked Chris by sticking a post-it note onto his armor after having him pinned underneath her during a spar. Annabeth had also asked Percy to the fireworks the same day that Beckendorf asked Silena, which had left Percy firetruck red, according to the son of Hephaestus.

"No, Will," I answered, lowering my hands. "I do not have, nor do I want, a date for the fireworks show in three days."

Oh, if it was July first, then it was Jason Grace's birthday. Happy fourteenth, I guess. I'd have to stop by when I have the chance.

"I'm calling BS on that," Luke said. "You've been here for…" – he began counting the clay beads around my neck – "eight years and never had a date to the fireworks? Don't you want to know what the big deal's all about?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"Seriously, you should just join the Hunters at this rate," Will joked.

However, it didn't take long before that good-nature joking was quickly replaced with guilt as Luke visibly winced, his eyes fixated on a point on the ground. Right, Thalia had used to be his date to the Fourth of July show, but that ended last year when she joined the Hunters of Artemis.

"Oh, geez, I'm sorry," Will apologized, his face beet red. "I wasn't thinking and-"

"It's fine, really," Luke said, trying for a smile which in reality was a grimace. "Plus, I had someone else in mind."

"Same!" Will gushed. "I don't know if he'll be here, but if he is-"

"Wait a minute. He?"

Will froze like a deer in headlights. "I've got to go," he said in a rushed breath, standing up so abruptly that his knees banged against the underside of the table and fell over the bench before taking off for his cabin.

"I wasn't trying to make fun of him," Luke said in a low voice, watching as Will slammed the door to cabin seven behind him. "Just curious."

"I don't think he intended to come out this way," I said reassuringly. "He's probably terrified that we're going to expose him to the rest of camp and stop being his friends."

"But that's crazy! Why would someone's sexuality determine a friendship status?"

"You'd be surprised about how often that happens in the mortal world." I stood up, biting back a wince from the weight on my bad leg. "I'm going to go talk to him."

Luke stood up as well. "I'm coming with you. He needs to know that I won't think differently of him."

Despite my own qualms, I bit my lip and gave a nod. "Fine, but if he asks either one of us to leave, we'll respect his wishes."

"Sounds good to me."

Will had been determined to keep us out of the Apollo cabin. All the doors leading inside were locked, and he'd somehow blockaded the windows with trunks and beds. Plus, it's not like I could shadow-travel inside seeing that there was light shining from underneath the door and around the windows like someone had shoved the sun inside of the cabin. Perhaps I could mist-travel, but the only entrance was underneath the crack of the doors, which was a tighter squeeze than I was comfortable with doing. Trust me, it sounds like a good idea in theory, but I assure you, not so much in practice.

But Luke beat me to the punch, walking right up to the front door and shutting his hand around the knob before shutting his eyes in concentration. Sweat broke out across his face as the faint sound of gears turning filled the air. Then he turned the door knob, causing for the door to swing open.

"Haven't done that in years," he said, wiping some sweat away with the back of his hand.

"Go away!" Will shouted, chucking pillows in our direction. I managed to duck the pillows, but Luke wasn't so lucky, one catching him in the face and exploding into a mess of feathers for someone to clean up later. "Leave me alone!"

I noticed that no one else was in the cabin, leaving Will free to do whatever he wanted without anyone watching. His bunk was a fortress of pillows, only his blond hair peeking out giving us a clue about his whereabouts on his bed.

Even from the door of the cabin, which was opposite from where Will's bunk was, I could see the pillows shaking and the sounds of his sniffling filling the air. Gods, I wanted to knock the daylights out of whoever made Will so afraid of being himself.

"Will, we're not leaving," I said softly, slowly placing pillows onto the ground until I could find the young son of Apollo. For Christ's sake he was only twelve. There should be no reason for a twelve-year-old to have this much self-hatred.

"You can't get rid of us so easily, kid," Luke said, plopping himself next to Will and slinging an arm over the younger boy's shoulders.

Will visibly flinched, shrinking in on himself as he clutched a pillow to his chest, his eyes screwed shut as his exhaled shakily. His face was still damp from his tears, red streaks running down the length of his cheeks.

"You must think I'm a freak, unnatural," Will said, his voice muffled by the pillow. "The son of an infamous womanizer liking guys, crazy, right?"

"What about Hyacinthus?" I asked, placing what I hoped to be a placating hand on Will's shoulder. "He's one of the most famous male lovers in all history, and it just so happens to be that your father, Apollo, was the one who loved him. Will, your father is about as straight as a circle."

Will looked up, staring at me weirdly. "But circles don't have any straight lines?"

"That's the point," Luke clarified. "And Apollo isn't the only one. Many of the gods don't care about the gender of their lovers as long as they're pretty or interesting."

"Yeah, for example, Cleo had two dads, Apollo and her mortal father." I bit my lip at the thought of my best friend but continued anyways. "Liking guys isn't anything to be ashamed of, Will, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Do you really mean that?" Will asked, finally opening his eyes for the first time. They were still glistening with unshed tears, but something told me these were tears of relief, not sadness.

"Of course we do."

Luke pushed the rest of the pillows onto the ground to wrap his arms around Will in a protective older brother kind of way. I joined in on the hug, feeling Will relax in the embrace, no longer afraid of us.

"So, who do you want to ask?" Luke said, reminding us of the topic we'd been discussing earlier.

"Nuh-uh," Will replied, shaking his head. "You first mister I-have-someone-else-in-mind."

Luke rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically, earning himself another pillow to the face courtesy of Will Solace. I laughed, which caused Will to throw a pillow at me as well, making him laugh hysterically as I spit feathers out of my mouth.

Who thought it was a good idea to shove so many feathers into pillows?

"Fine, if you must know," Luke began, picking up a discarded pillow and hugging it to his chest, "I'm thinking about asking Thalia to the fireworks."

"But she's a Hunter," Will said, confusion clear in his voice. "Didn't she swear off men with that oath?"

"She did," I answered, raising my eyebrows at Luke. "Plus, Artemis told me that the Hunters are busy trying to take down monster strongholds before they strengthen too much. Even if she said yes, Thalia wouldn't be allowed to leave for the fireworks for multiple reasons."

"I know, but a guy can dream." He sighed. "I mean, her departure was so abrupt. How can she be telling me 'I love you' one day and join the Hunters a little less than a week later? What did I do wrong?"

"You did nothing wrong, Luke," I assured him.

"Maybe she did it to escape the prophecy," Will suggested. "Maybe she doesn't want to be an eternal maiden and only did it to let the prophecy pass onto Percy. I know I would've done the same thing in her place."

"What about you, mister I-have-a-crush-on-a-boy?" Luke said, taking a page from Will's book on teasing.

Will turned a bright red and threw another pillow at Luke. This time, the son of Hermes managed to duck the feather filled projectile.

"Well, umm, gods this is mortifying," Will said, burying his face into a pillow again, his blush spreading from the tips of his ears down to his Adam's apple. "You guys are like my parents, and now I'm supposed to tell you who I have a crush on?"

"Yup," I said, popping the 'p' sound. "Now spill."

He groaned again but finally squeaked out, "Nico di Angelo."

"YES!" I shouted, pumping my fist in joy, biting back a curse when my knuckles slammed against the wood of the upper bunk. But screw the pain when Solangelo would be canon in this timeline as well. "My bad, please continue."

The two boys seemed genuinely concerned about me, but I waved them off, causing them to blink twice before resuming our conversation.

"So, yeah, I want to ask Nico to the fireworks next time I see him. But last I heard, he left camp again, so I don't think I'll have the chance."

"I could try to contact him, if you want," I offered, which only made Will shake his head so quickly I thought he was going to give himself whiplash.

"Please don't do that, Andy. I'd die of embarrassment to have someone play matchmaker for me."

"Stay away from the Aphrodite cabin, then," Luke added. I bit back a snicker.

Seriously, those love children didn't know when to butt out when it was good for them. It's like they fed off gossip or something. (Let me add that this is just a generalization. I'm well aware that not all Aphrodite children are like this, but come on, most of them are.)

"What about you, Andy?" Will asked. "I know you don't want to ask anyone, but if someone did ask, who would you want it to be?"

"Ooh, that's a way to get an answer. Good job, kid." Luke patted Will on the back.

I sighed and shook my head. "I don't know. I don't stay around camp long enough to really have romantic feelings for anyone."

Luke groaned loudly like he was in pain before chucking a pillow at me. "Again, you've been here for almost a decade now, Andy. You know the people here better than most of us. Now, who would you want to be asked by?"

"I don't know," I repeated with a shrug. "James, maybe? I mean, he's the only person here around my age. But we're only acquaintances, not even that close of friends. Plus, I think he has a girlfriend in the Demeter cabin."

"Uh, you're wrong about the age thing," Will said. "There's another twenty-two-year-old at camp that isn't James or you."

"Really? Who would that be?"

"Luke!"

"What?!" the both of exclaimed, glancing at each other for a brief moment before returning our gaze to Will.

I felt like my face was on fire; Luke wasn't any better off. Not that I had feelings for Luke or anything, but I'd viewed him as a brother for so long that it was kind of weird to think of him asking me to the fireworks.

"Technically Luke's twenty-two," Will pointed out.

"Erm, I'm nineteen."

Will rolled his eyes at us like we were ignorant children. He stood up from his bunk and started fishing through his nightstand, victoriously returning with a notepad and pencil before plopping back into his spot.

"You were fourteen when you were put in that tree, right?" Will asked Luke, jotting down the number fourteen in the middle of his page. Luke nodded. "Okay, well if I do some simple math," – he wrote the number 2000 above the fourteen and worked out the subtraction – "I get 1986. And you've filled out the sheets in the infirmary enough times that I know your birthday is February 16th, 1986. So, according to these calculations, you're twenty-two."

Luke glanced downward, biting his lip until a thin stream of blood started flowing from the side of his mouth. Before Will could do anything, I handed Luke a little bit of gauze and forced his hand to hold it there.

"It happened with Thalia, too," I reminded them. "If you both aged normally within that tree, she'd be twenty at the moment. She would've aged past the Great Prophecy, which my father would never let happen. He'd never pass up the chance to turn a child of the Big Three."

"You're a child of Kro-?!" Will began until I clapped a hand over his mouth, cutting off the rest of the word.

"Don't say his name, especially not now. But yeah, I am." I scrunched my eyebrows together in confusion. "Haven't I told you guys this already?"

"Uh, no," Luke said in shock, pulling the bloodied gauze away from his mouth. "Why are we just now learning about this?"

I shrugged. "Gods forbade me from telling. Might as well tell the truth from now before he calls me out in front of everyone else. I don't need anyone calling me a traitor in the middle of battle."

"No one would do that."

I stood up, wincing as my leg throbbed with pain. Jesus, I was going to need to be in a soaker tub for the next couple of days if this kept up.

"You'd be surprised at the amount of people who distrust me," I replied, twirling my bracelet around my wrist. "Ever since I came to camp, people have been afraid of me, of my powers. What are they going to say when I say that I'm the daughter of the Titan King after saying that I've yet to be claimed? All that'll do is get me killed."

Just then, my phone began vibrating in my back pocket. I stifled the urge to throw the piece of technology at the wall and pulled it out, huffing silently as I accepted the call and raised the phone to me ear.

"Hello?" I asked, ignoring the look of shock Will was giving me for using something we'd all been told was forbidden for our safety. It seems that many of my secrets are being revealed to the son of Apollo for the first time.

"Hi, Andy," a voice which I hadn't heard in years spoke. "This is Andromeda Collins' phone, correct?"

I felt myself paling and turned away from the two boys. Gods, this day just couldn't get worse, could it?

"This is she." I swallowed the lump of fear that had built in my throat. "It's been a while, Jason. Oh, by the way, happy birthday!"

"Heh, thanks, and yeah, it really has been a while," he said, chuckling softly. "Almost five years, I think? However long it may have been, it's a good thing I got in contact with you."

"What's wrong?" I asked, my heart already sinking in my chest.

"Well…we may or not be under attack at the moment."

"What?"

Jason winced. "You said only to call in emergency situations, and Reyna said not to, but-"

"It's fine, Jason," I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Give me something to work with, though."

"Well, there are a ton of hellhounds and giant men flooding in from the Caldecott Tunnel. There are also these snake women and vampire ladies, but I don't know what they're called."

"Those are dracaenae and empousai. But just how many are we dealing with?"

I glanced behind me, seeing the matching looks of worry on Will and Luke's faces. Luke was already standing up, his hand tightly wrapped around the hilt of his sword, clearly waiting for me to fill him in on what was going on. Will was on edge as well, his bow already having appeared slung over his shoulders, his fingers already nervously plucking at the string.

"There's at least fifty, but with how many are coming in from the outside, it's impossible to tell." His voice was cut off as he shouted a command in Latin before grunting, as if something had just plowed right into his chest.

"Jason, are you seriously in the middle of a fight right now and talking to me at the same time?"

"…Maybe."

"Gods, you have a death wish. I'll be there soon."

"Please hurry," he said, and with that, the line went dead.

I swore under my breath and shoved my phone deep into my bag before transforming it back into a charm. All I wanted was a break before getting sent gods-knows where else. Was that too much to ask for?

"What was that?" Luke demanded, his hand frozen around the hilt of his sword. "Who's Jason?"

"A friend," I answered, moving towards the door. "Look, I promise I'll explain later, but I need to go."

"But you just got here!" Will exclaimed. "What could be so urgent that you need to go right now?"

"My friends may die in the next few minutes if I don't show up," I said, feeling my frustration grow. I loved my friends, but after being gone so long, they were especially clingy at the moment. That was something I couldn't afford for the time being, not when I was constantly being used as an ambassador/warrior.

"Then let us help." Luke stepped towards the door, his body tense as if he were waiting for someone to shoot a gun for him to take off running. "It sounds like your friends need it."

"You can't, sorry."

Luke raised his eyebrows at me. "And why not?"

"Classified."

"Is everything classified with you now?" Luke shouted, throwing his hands up into the air. "What happened to the girl who told me everything?"

"Things are different now," I said, tapping my foot impatiently. "I'm no longer just a camper here, Luke. I swore my fidelity to Olympus eight years ago, and now I'm paying the price for that oath."

"But that's not fair to you!" Will blurted out. "You deserve to live your life as you wish, just like the rest of us!"

I gave the son of Apollo a sad smile. "My fate is to serve the gods, I'm afraid. And there's nothing anyone can do about it."

I took a step towards the shadows.

"Andy, wait-" Luke began, lunging forward to grab me.

But it was too late.

I vanished into the darkness, the wind howling in my ears as the shadows transported me to my destination.

With one last shove, I leapt from the shadows, landing on the marble floor of the Via Principalis.

I had arrived at Camp Jupiter.

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